Thomas Aquinas said: “No one can live without joy. That is why a person deprived of spiritual joy goes after carnal pleasures.” Truth of the Spirit with Patti Brunner presents “Is Your Life Out of Balance?” The Lord tells us the supernatural answer for balance: trust, surrender, know the power of God, and recognize what the Lord has already done. As Truth of the Spirit approaches our 200th podcast, the Lord asked Patti Brunner to take a retro look at some of the very first things He instructed her to share on the Truth of the Spirit podcasts with “Working through the World’s Chaos to Find Supernatural Peace” by “Supernatural Answers When There is Carnal Chaos.” To watch or listen or to read the script please continue reading.
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When I was a teenager there was a Beatle’s song, “Help!” One of the verses went “Help me if you can, I’m feeling down. And I do appreciate you being ‘round. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won’t you please, please help me!” If your life is out of balance, you need help! Jesus applauded friends who were loyal in helping others seek the Lord. Remember the four friends who lowered their friend down through the roof to ask Jesus to heal him in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 2:1-12. Jesus rewarded parents who sought him for the benefit of their children. In Luke Chapter 8: 41-56, Jesus healed the dying 12-year-old daughter of Jairus who fell at the feet of Jesus and begged him to come to his house. In John Chapter 4:46-53, a royal official left his dying son’s side to travel to beg Jesus to come to his house. Jesus told him: “You may go; your son will live.” His son did live, “and he and his whole household came to believe.” Do you need a little help?
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit. I’m your host Patti Brunner. As Truth of the Spirit approaches our 200th podcast, the Lord asked me to take a retro look at some of the very first things He instructed me to share on the Truth of the Spirit podcasts with “Working Through the World’s Chaos to Find Supernatural Peace”. Today we ask the question: “Is Your Life Out of Balance?”
St. Thomas Aquinas said: “No one can live without joy. That is why a person deprived of spiritual joy goes after carnal pleasures.” Today we are going to discuss “Supernatural Answers when there is Carnal Chaos.” A weakness I battle is a tendency to binge watch movies or TV series. When I give in, I quickly can find myself in a spiritual slump. So how does this addiction to entertainment videos, this stealer of my time, cause a spiritual slump? Why is it so hard to overcome?
The Lord said to ask you this: “Why is your life busy? One hundred people will have a hundred different answers. Why is your life full of peace? Ah, the answers narrow to Trust in God. Why should you not have peace and still take care of the duties the Lord has given you? When the Lord sets the pace of the day the day no longer rules over you. It falls into ‘place’. When we rely on our own understanding and power, who do we turn to for help? There is no one and we sink into panic mode. If we rely on a spouse or a parent to rescue us we are alleviated some. This shows us part of the answer.” The Lord said, “Our loving God the Father reaches out to help us when we run to him in time of trouble and chaos. But is there a better way? Instead of rescue in trauma –could not ‘relationship and trust’ be a simpler way? Being aware of the magnificent benevolence of God allows us to turn to God in large and small things and avoid the panic.” We can choose to live life in the Spirit rather than a life in the flesh.
There is a George Gershwin song, “Summer time, and the living is easy.” The Lord tells us: “When we live in the supernatural mode, ‘the living is easy”! How do we live in the ‘supernatural mode’? Jesus taught us the Way. Jesus taught people to ask for repentance and healing. In Matthew Chapter 4:17 Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” NAB It was the first thing Jesus preached when he began his public ministry. He was teaching us that to have the supernatural peace of the Kingdom of God we first have to repent! We have to choose to change. We make the decision, and He provides the grace to follow through.
The Lord says to us, “This is the way. Turning to the Lord should be an every day and perhaps every moment occurrence. He never tires of your seeking his Presence and help. God loves you and when you deeply love someone you want to spend lots of time with them. Does life have problems? Yes. Are solutions found in the world? Sometimes. Are solutions found in the supernatural Kingdom of God? Always!” Do not use God as a last resort. “I could have had a V-8” –does that sound familiar? It is an old commercial that played on the regret of our decisions. It is never wrong to seek God first for our answers and help.”
Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 6:33 to “seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness.” NAB Our Lord is the Giver of gifts. He loves us perfectly. He shows us the Way. Jesus is the Way. In the Gospel of John Chapter 14 verse 6 “Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” NAB How do we take the Way? “Trust is key.” Let’s discuss the key of trust.
The Lord said to tell you: “A key unlocks that which is hidden from sight. It does not create a treasure but merely reveals it.” The Lord said, “You know that I Am present behind the ‘veil’ of a closed tabernacle. What about a closed heart? In the sacrament of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist I Am is given your heart to dwell within. I remain with you until the end of time as long as you don’t kick Me out through final hatred. Even so I return to the repentant heart quickly. What is the key that allows His return? The Lord says, “Trust. This heart trusts that forgiveness is possible. Trust me that I will not hold this against you for eternity. What about lesser things?”
The Lord said to tell you, “When you are willing to lay down your ‘will for winning at all costs’ and are willing to submit to a greater power, the turmoil and battle gives way to peace. Often pride keeps the battle going too long and casualties and injuries occur that affect what should be an exhilaration of peace.”
The Lord asks us, “Why do we struggle with surrendering to God? He is not an enemy who seeks to destroy us. No, He is a loving Father who knows what is best for us. Yet, we hold on to control. Control is a part of our free-will choices.” Perhaps our struggle with surrendering to God has to do with our lack of knowing the Power of God. The Lord told me to tell you, “When you look at the intricacies of the world around you, it is difficult to comprehend the intelligence of God who formed the earth and all things upon it. This pales, however, when compared to the Power of God. Life! The power of God provides life itself. The amazing thing is that God shares this power with a man and a woman as they cooperate with God in providing life to their children.”
The Lord said, “It is the power of God who sets eternity as the opportunity to be one with God; since God is eternal the only way to be one with him is to also be eternal. Our soul and glorified body embraces the power of God for all eternity. We do not have to wait for eternity, however, to know God’s power. As the Holy Spirit descended upon man after their redemption through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God’s power also entered the hearts and souls of his people. Baptism is a means of accepting the power of God. Outward signs of God’s power include the many charisms accepted for the benefit of all the Church. Each time a saint is beatified and canonized there is an acknowledgment of God’s power manifesting in their lives. Even in martyrdom there is a witness of power. How else could someone lay down their lives for an intangible belief in an ‘invisible’ God?”
The Lord asks, “Are you in a low-watt power stream? Do you limit God’s power in your life? Trust in God’s breaker box instead of providing your own. Allow the power of God to shine forth in your lives. Thus you shall be as a lamp put on a hillside for all the world to see.” Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 5:14 “You are the light of the world.” … “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” NAB Are you aware that the Lord has made you to be a lamp? –A brightly lit city on the hillside for the entire world to see?
The Lord said to tell you, “You only know part of what I have done for you. As you count your joys— I have done them. As you count the healings and supernatural events in your lives, I have provided them. As you read the Word of God or watched a sunset— I have provided them. You cannot list nor count them all. I give the sleep that refreshes and the food that nourishes and the ‘babes in arms’ that continues man upon the earth. Fear not acknowledging what I have done for each of you. ‘See what the Lord has done!’ goes the song. Truly, you have eyes to see and ears to hear and thoughts to think. Those who are in a dark place in their lives have only need to recognize My provision” says the Lord. When evil stands firm it seeks to hide the joys that the Lord has given” The Lord said, “Dreariness, depression, grief—these only note what has been taken from sight or the feeling when comparing what others seem to have that you do not. These hide truth. These hide true life and the multitude of gifts that I have given. I have formed each thumbprint that you might recognize the uniqueness of My love for you. Look at the trail of the generations before you that have paved a way for this moment in your lives.”
The Lord says, “Ask My help to open your eyes to recognize what I have done. My children, be aware! The supernatural realm is hidden in plain sight when you have spiritual sight to realize the greatness of the Lord. Like stars that are in the sky all times but are revealed to natural sight when the air is crisp and the night is upon you. Sometimes you can even see the moon during the day. What you must remember is that these twinkling stars shine all the time.” [repeat] “All the time! You await the sunrise to see the sun. It does not disappear. You believe this even though you cannot use your five senses to see, taste or feel it. Enter the supernatural realm in the same way.”
The Lord says, “Listen to those who have experienced the ‘supernatural’ power of God when they speak truth. Reading the Word of God reveals much.” The Lord says, “My saints experienced much. But even those around you can be affected by Me in the supernatural realm as they are taught by the Spirit how to see. ‘Recognizing what I have already done’? What have I not done? Only through the gift of freewill has the deceiver led you to unbelief of My power and grace. See what the Lord has done! [sung]”
My friends, a major issue today is that we don’t remember what God has done! A good way to remember a fact is to repeat it. The Lord says, “Witness, witness, testify the goodness of the Lord. When you share the good things the Lord has done for you it gives hope and expectation that allows faith to grow and love to manifest. Continually take note of the Presence of God in your life. When the extraordinary takes place, remember it. Write it, speak it, share it! The Church was built on the testimony of your brothers and sisters in Christ. They testified their wisdom and knowledge. They also testified to the power and love manifesting in their lives through the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit is God the Testifier.”
“That sounds ‘funny’ doesn’t it!” God the Testifier! The Holy Spirit testifies within our spirit. It is through “the gifts of boldness and witness that Peter was able to speak to the 3000 new ‘converts’ on the day of Pentecost. It was the Holy Spirit the Testifier who grabbed a hold of Paul and gave him an experience that rocked the world,” an experience that “testified into Paul’s spirit of the Truth of his Lord Jesus and the Testament of the prophets and writers of the scriptures. Paul’s conversion is set forth three times in the Acts of the Apostles. His witness of the greatness of God, meaningful in his life personally, was also a key testimony of the power of God and brought many believers to the faith. Paul was a man who hunted down the new Christians to kill them because he thought them to be blasphemers. By the power of God, Paul supernaturally received the truth, the life and fullness of the Holy Spirit and became one of the greatest Catholic evangelizers of all time!
The Lord says to us, “Do not fear remembering the bad along with the conversion. It is this that proves the glory of God. “I was a sinner—God made me a saint” is the witness that could be spoken by many—most—of the saints in heaven. St. Augustine, Father of the Church, was a ‘terrible sinner’. Remember what God did for him!” Through the intercessory prayers of his mother, Monica, he had the opportunity to hear the great preacher Bishop Ambrose. Hearing the truth changed everything! Augustine not only embraced his Catholic faith, he became one of the doctrinal Fathers of the Church. Augustine, his mother, and Ambrose have all been named saints by our Church.
The Lord says to us, “Sharing your own experiences great or small edifies the body of Christ. It builds your own faith and it glorifies your Father in heaven–who, because He loves you so dearly, sent his Son to redeem you and his Holy Spirit to dwell within you to sanctify and to testify.” Jesus promises us in the Gospel of John Chapter 14:26-27 “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” NAB
Thomas Aquinas said: “No one can live without joy. That is why a person deprived of spiritual joy goes after carnal pleasures.” The Lord told me that we need “Supernatural answers when there is carnal chaos”! Carnal refers to the body or our earthly desires but it also refers to our ‘sin nature’ that constantly rebels against God. Man has dual natures: Our spiritual nature and our carnal nature. The Greek word is translated carnal, sarx or flesh. We are in a struggle in this world with two opposing powers: the life in the Spirit and the life in the flesh. Jesus told us in the Gospel of Matthew 6: 24 “No one can serve two masters” NAB Like weights on a balance scale, if we add to one side the other side is affected. If we remove a weight, then the other side loses its balance. In our culture today, it seems like the carnal is growing by leaps and bounds. It has to do with the dual nature of man. It doesn’t have to happen. God gives us the grace to rebalance our scales.
You’ve been listening to Truth of the Spirit ask “Is Your Life Out of Balance?” The non-scriptural words of the Lord shared today were personal revelation through the charism of prophecy. As always, we encourage you to discern them. I am Patti Brunner. You can access the blog of this episode at PatriarchMinistries.com/192. We invite you to subscribe to our free YouTube channel and come back for more. With the Holy Spirit, there’s always more! Amen.
